A Meeting Made
by Morninglight
Summary: Sequel to 'A Mission Failed'. Lia bint Rustem has discovered who the Dragonborn is in Ivarstead and gets a taste of Nord prejudice into the bargain.


Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. These will be a series of interconnected one-shots, very much like the Ysraneth series, instead of a full-on novel like the Fifth Age stories. Trigger warning for fantastic racism.

…

Lia very much wanted to express her disappointment with Akatosh for not putting a glowing sign over Ralof's head that proclaimed him the Dragonborn. The golden-blond Stormcloak was sitting in the Vilemyr Inn in Ivarstead with a bottle of Black-Briar mead in one hand and a leg of roast goat (a Nord staple) in the other when she walked in. She'd tracked him through rumour and hearsay, combing through the silt for gemstones the size of grains, after the Greybeards had called him. The Alik'r had no desire to piss on the traditions of High Hrothgar, not when every scrap of knowledge was needed in the battle against Alduin.

Ralof raised his bottle in Lia's direction, smiling crookedly. "I was wondering when you'd show up again, Alik'r," he greeted dryly.

She matched his crooked smile and walked over to his table. "I took a circuitous route through Falkreath," came the soft confession. "And then I had to clean up a mess in Whiterun."

Kematu's incompetence was none of his concern, though Lia was unamused at having to do the Crown's job for him _and_ clean up his mess. Uncle Irkand was a die-hard Lhotunic, the moderate faction caught between the forward-looking Forebears and the conservative Crowns, but Lia's neutrality went beyond that. She was Alik'r, no more, no less.

"The Redguard in Whiterun who tried to kidnap the barmaid at the Bannered Mare?" Ralof asked far too shrewdly for her comfort. "Sayda?"

"Saadia, also known as Iman al-Sudra, who sold a city to the Thalmor," Lia responded in a cold whisper. "Without getting into specifics, I had to perform a mission I wasn't even given and clean up the mess left by an overenthusiastic brother."

"Ah." Ralof sipped from his mead. "I'll pass word on that it was… targeted, not random."

The Stormcloak tilted his chin at the spare seat. "Please join me. I suspect I know why you're here."

Lia sat down and as the bard/waitress came over, put in an order for vegetable stew and bread. She couldn't afford the wine and didn't really find the taste of mead pleasant, which probably made her a very poor Norc. Perhaps she could get some herbal tea later – or brew some herself.

"I am Blades-trained," she admitted once the bard had left. "I have as much knowledge of the lore as anyone other than a loremaster – who I'm trying to track at the moment – had. I failed in stopping Alduin's return – I can at least advise you on how to stop the World-Eater."

Honesty, she'd found, was the best policy in situations like this. No manipulations, no hedged words… Just as much information as she could offer. "However, I won't reveal Alik'r secrets," she added pointedly.

Ralof nodded, tearing away the last bit of goat's meat from the bone in as much frustration as hunger. "I never asked for this," he growled once the food was devoured.

"The constant refrain of the hero," Lia agreed, not unsympathetically. She would have felt much easier with anybody but her being the Dragonborn's Blades advisor.

"I am torn. Even with the one Word of Power I know, I could help turn the tide in the civil war, but…"

"Alduin won't sit by while you kick the Empire out of Skyrim," Lia pointed out. "I'm not entirely familiar with the Greybeards' traditions, but there's some kind of pilgrimage to High Hrothgar and then some test of character, right?"

Ralof's eyes grew distant. "It is said that the Greybeards came from the Throat of the World to greet Talos as Dragonborn but before he went to Sancre Tor, he climbed to High Hrothgar for their blessing and was sent to Ustengrav. But no one knows where Ustengrav is."

"Clever. Saves random people from claiming they're the Dragonborn and bothering the monks if only they know where Ustengrav is," Lia noted. "It's something like the tests of the Alik'r to become Ansei Shehai – Saint of the Sword. Now and then a damned fool will come along and claim to have mastered their inner power to produce a Shehai – a Soul Sword – but it's just a Bound Sword."

Ralof nodded slowly. "What happens to someone who does that?"

Lia's mouth quirked grimly. "They're cut into collops by the real Ansei demonstrating the difference between a Soul Sword and a Bound one."

The Dragonborn laughed sharply. "I bet that discourages fools."

"You'd be surprised. No Alik'r warrior would be that stupid but there's always _someone_ who'd otherwise fail the training or even the first test." The things she shared were common knowledge in Hammerfell, even to those from Skyrim who travelled there. Irkand had disliked the veil of secrecy and isolation which had destroyed the Blades, so there was some public knowledge of the Alik'r, with the secrets saved for those who passed the first test.

Ralof tilted his head. "What's the first test?"

"Travel to Wind Scour Temple, which lies in the heart of the great Alik'r Desert." Lia closed her eyes, recalling the day she had left her paternal grandmother's clan in Sentinel to make the journey. Grandaunt Nurah had wept but none dissuaded her; by blood and birth, she had the right to test for the Alik'r, and only the greatest swords could be forged through the heat of the desert and the sweat of the journey. And that was only the Heating of the Steel.

"In Skyrim, we leave home on the bitterest winter day and slay an ice-wraith to bring back its teeth as a souvenir to become an adult… or a Stormcloak," Ralof answered with the understanding of a man who'd undergone a similar rite of passage. "The ice-wraiths are the souls of the winter-dead and in killing them, we return them to Kaan – Kynareth – for rebirth. It's not a test you can really fake because anyone who fights an ice-wraith comes away with blue-silver scars like this."

The Dragonborn removed his fur gauntlet to reveal a jagged scar that indeed had a blue-silver sheen to it.

Lia nodded thoughtfully. "I'll add that to my to-do list," she observed. "I need to prove that I'm giving more than lip service to my Norc ancestry."

Ralof shrugged. "I don't know exactly how the Norcs do it, though I once drank with Gorek Half-Moon, and he said something about hunting and forging."

She allowed herself a smile. "I am a competent smith and enchanter. Too few of the Alik'r favour making blades over wielding them and after my Heating, my uncle saw fit to train me in several skills the majority of the Brothers and Sisters were lacking at the time."

Ralof's ice-blue eyes lit up. "You're a wondersmith? They're few and far between up here outside of the Grey-Manes, who are the masters of the Clever Craft, and though the clan supports our cause, Eorlund will not forsake his vow of neutrality while he works the Skyforge at Jorrvaskr."

Lia inclined her head. "My skills are available to the Stormcloaks on the condition I am permitted to add a rune which will make the weapons dull if they are lifted to harm an Alik'r. My uncle wishes for a free Skyrim – for the Ra Gada and Nords were the backbone of the Legions that saved Cyrodiil, and still the Empire pissed on us both – but he'd not see weapons turned against the warriors of Hammerfell if some future ruler decides to get into a pissing match."

"That is for Ulfric to decide," Ralof said, looking out into the darkening sky. "He has told me that I must answer the call of the Greybeards immediately."

"And so you should. Alduin is the priority." Lia allowed herself a dark smirk. "I should give you warning that the Greybeards and Blades have hated each other since the days of Talos, for the monks urged restraint and the warriors who would become Blades were… a major catalyst for Talos in becoming Tiber Septim."

_"No matter how vile the deed, the Aurelii performed it,"_ Irkand said tersely. _"Talos and the Blades corrupted each other, to a certain extent. When there were strong Septims, the balance was maintained – if the Emperor was saintly, the Blades were pragmatic, and if the Emperor was tyrannical, we… dealt with the problem. The Imperial Simulacra destroyed that balance and Martin's death shattered it for all time."_

Strong words coming from the man whose name was said to compel Thalmor to shit themselves in sheer terror.

"They won't see an Alik'r but a Blade," Ralof said, speaking the truth implied in her words.

"Yes. I'll travel with you up the mountain-"

"Normally I would not deny a kinswoman the chance to make the pilgrimage to High Hrothgar, but I think this is a thing I must do alone," Ralof interrupted gently. "If I might ask, I would like you to go to Windhelm and tell Ulfric what you've told me. I will return before heading to Ustengrav."

Lia nodded, lips pursed. It was a reasonable request. "That's fair enough. I'll leave in the morning."

Ralof rummaged in his pouch and tossed her a coin purse. "Take the carriage. I think it's imperative you arrive in Windhelm safely."

"And the bandits won't attack the carriage?" Lia asked with some amusement, catching the meagre coin purse.

"The _Legion_ won't," Ralof answered softly. "If word of an Alik'r aiding the Stormcloaks reaches Tullius…"

"I understand." Lia pocketed the coin as her meal arrived. Cold vegetable stew and bread that was a step off being mouldy. Either someone was a poor cook, had a problem with Alik'r, or just thought she was a milkdrinker who couldn't handle a proper meal.

"I don't expect high cuisine from a country inn but I would have at least expected a hot meal," she drawled, eyeing the cheap wooden bowl disdainfully.

"I'm sorry, I thought I heard a pig talking," the waitress responded mockingly.

Lia smiled slowly, lips pulling back to reveal the delicate under-tusks that Grandaunt Nurah had wanted to file – for her own good – until Uncle Irkand had pointed out that her enormous eyes with their minimal sclera would just reveal the truth anyway. "I think that was your… singing," she retorted. "Have Norcs offended you somehow?"

The waitress who fancied herself a bard scowled. "Be glad you got the slops, Norc. Wilhelm would have thrown you out if he'd realised you were one of the pig-bloods from Half-Moon Hold."

Lia put a hand on Ralof's forearm. "I'm not here to make trouble," she told the Dragonborn.

The golden-blond Nord regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "You would allow your kin to be insulted?"

Lia's smile turned into a grin as she pointedly looked the woman up and down. "An Alik'r doesn't unsheathe her sword for those who aren't worthy of dying by it."

Judging by the flare of heat in her eyes, Lia had just made her first enemy in Skyrim. Wonderful.

"As you wish." Ralof grunted and rose to his feet. "Now that I've killed the bears in Honeystrand Cave, it will be safe to sleep there until the morning. You're welcome to join me."

Lia smirked at the Dragonborn. "I'm flattered, but blonds aren't my type."

Ralof smirked at her in reply. "Don't worry, I prefer redheads."

"Oh well then, my virtue is safe." Lia rose to her feet, ignoring the stew. She had trial rations and could resupply herself in Windhelm.

Honeystrand Cave was surprisingly homey for a place strewn with the bleached bones of man and beast who had encountered the offending bears, who had been stripped off their useful bits and head. "Ulfric is having a special set of bearskin and dragonbone armour made for me," Ralof confided as she casually called fire to start a blaze.

"Oh, like that won't tell the Legion and Thalmor who you are," she observed dryly. "Anonymity might serve you better for now, Ralof."

"Until I am greeted by the Greybeards," he agreed. "But once it becomes known that the Dragonborn is a member of Ulfric's personal guard…"

Lia's fingers curled slightly like a sword-singer testing the weight of a scimitar. "They will come for you regardless. But by then, you should have the weapons – and friends – to defend yourself."

_And what happens if you decide to become another Talos?_ The thought was grim. Ralof was a young man in his mid-twenties – in his prime but old enough to know how to fight. The perfect hero to fight Alduin, at least physically, and he gave thought to the advice of others. Yet if he wanted to be a conqueror…

Irkand had given her a third mission: _"Aid the Stormcloaks but find every bit of knowledge you can that will hamstring them if they wish to conquer Hammerfell."_

"Indeed," Ralof said softly. "Indeed."

He lay down on the bedroll he'd set up and fell asleep, leaving Lia to meditate on the balance between honour and pragmatism. She could sleep on the wagon, she supposed.

When dawn came, Ralof and she went different directions: he to destiny and she to Windhelm. The storm was coming and only time would tell if it would beat down even Alduin.


End file.
